Lately, I’ve found myself trying to achieve what other photographers deem as “success”. Since making the decision to officially begin a career as a photographer, I’ve felt like I’ve been desperately scrambling around trying to play catch up like a student who’s walked in late, and completely flustered, for a final exam. So, right off I’ve broken the first cardinal rule of finding happiness which is comparing myself to others; mind you others who have been in the game years, even decades, longer than I have. Granted I started out with a practical plan to ease my way into this newfound career choice.
My first step into the business aspect of photography was to create a website, a place where I could refer potential clients to. Now, I am by no means a technologically savvy person so this was no small feat. I decided that instead of painstakingly trying to figure out how to create a website on my own, I would just take a class on web design. Thanks to Clickin Moms I was able to do just that. I signed up for a 4 week intensive course and though I wanted to rip my hair out during the process, at the end of the 4 weeks I had a website that I had uniquely created to my liking and that I was happy to refer clients to…success! I could cross “create a website” off my to do list and move on to the next task. Towards the end of the course, however, there was mention of another course on how to boost your SEO. Now, I had no idea what SEO even meant (I’m tellin’ ya that’s how little I know about all things computer related) so I left the topic on the back burner of my brain. Months later, I learned that SEO (search engine optimization) has everything to do with how quickly people can find your website, thereby becoming potential clients. Well, I didn’t want to fork out the cash to take a class just on this “little SEO thing” so I figured this part I could handle myself. It’s kind of like marketing, right? At least that’s what I thought. So I dove right in eager to cross something else off my building a business to do list.
Next thing I knew I was taking webinar after webinar on all things social media related. Everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, I read or heard talked about how being a successful photographer meant boosting SEO and getting your name out there and the best way to do that was obviously through the most widely used platforms of today’s world; social media! Problem was, I’m not really a social media fan. I had a Facebook account which I used frequently for family and friends, so creating a separate account for my business really didn’t seem too daunting. Except, come to find out Facebook has changed the way its feed works so based on FB algorithms my page, unless “Liked” and maybe not even then, will never be seen by future potential clients unless I pay to boost ads and so forth. Moving right along to Instagram then.
Admittedly, I had no idea what Instagram was. My little sister, bless her heart, was appalled that I knew nothing of Instagram and volunteered to not only create an account for me but also give me an Instagram 101 tutorial via FaceTime; modern technology for the win! She explained to me that Instagram was a perfect hub for my photography business and that “everyone was doing it”, and she was right. Instagram, I came to discover, can be a powerful networking tool. But honestly, I found myself feeling so overwhelmed. As I mentioned, there I was taking late night webinars and 7 day Insta challenges trying to figure out how the heck people accomplish having tens and hundreds of thousands of followers. I was liking, commenting, and hash tagging the hell outta every IG account related to photography. As instructed by these webinars, I was trying to post my work daily, but not at the same time, and not too little, but not too much and blah blah blah. And I must say, while it was such a cool feeling to be recognized for my work and featured a handful of times on different IG accounts, the amount of time and stress that it took to get my meager 100+ followers wasn’t really worth the effort considering how I stressed over it.
I’d also read that to be a successful photographer I must must MUST have a blog. Well, evidently (given my whopping 2 posts) maintaining a blog is not my strong suit [insert awkward face emoji here]. Ironically enough, I love to write. I’ve kept a journal almost religiously since I was in grade school and I adore words! This would seemingly be the most natural thing for me to do, right? But its not. It’s time consuming, probably in part because it’s new to me, but regardless time is not a luxury I have these days.
Facebook and Instagram and blogging, oh my! How the heck do I keep up with all these things so I can be a “successful” photographer with clients lined up to do sessions with me, but still continue to be the stress free, fun loving, stay at home mom my four little men know and love? Work-life balance is quite the struggle. I threw in the towel. I’m simply not willing to overwhelm myself in rigorously working the social media world trying to gain followers and insta fame at the expense of losing precious time with my family. Unfortunately, in my past I have what I refer to as “the dark ages” where I stretched myself so thin amongst so many endeavors, albeit good things, that it ultimately led to self destruction. Maybe I’ll explain that one in another post. Then, one night as I sat at my computer, feeling discouraged that I would never achieve such “success” it occurred to me, I don’t want that kind of success. I don’t actually want photo session after photo session filling up my every day and weekends, stealing the irreplaceable time I have with my family. We all know how fast our little ones grow and I’d hate to feel like I was missing it! It got me thinking, ‘why did I start photography to begin with?’ I’ll tell you why – because I love this life! I love the beautiful chaos of families and love, and I dearly love this journey of motherhood (most of the time, I mean there’s some things I could certainly do without *wink*). I’m such a sentimental gush that I just want to hold on to moments forever like some crazy hoarder. Not to mention, photography serves as a wonderful, creative outlet for me. I’ve always been an artsy person and a writer and so photography is like the perfect love child of those two things! I’ve decided that if I capture and tell the unique story of a sweet new baby, a couple endlessly in love, or a beautiful family in the craziness of their days during a photography session then I will have acheived my definition of success; whether I have 1 session a year or 50 doesn’t matter.
Perhaps the best take away from any of the webinars I took was one webinar where the host said, “find one photograph from your work that defines your business.” Here’s my one photograph:
This is my beautiful friend, Shauna, and the youngest of her three lovely daughters, Margo. Every time I do a session I prepare myself, and my clients, for that matter by sending them a questionnaire that I personally wrote up to help me get to know them better. When Shauna handed me her questionnaire she said something that I will never forget. She said, “I just want to take pictures before Margo’s baby curls are gone.” When she said that to me I made it my goal to get at least one gorgeous, intimate shot of just her and Margo where you could see Margo’s darling baby curls. To me, this lovely photo defines what I want my business to be about! Achieving this in a single session is all the success I need or want.
There you have it. I’ve defined what success will mean to me as a photographer. I decided I’ll still maintain my social media accounts to the best of my ability mainly for sneak peeks of the sessions I do as a courtesy to my clients. And, you’ll notice that instead of referring to this particular medium as a “blog”, I’m calling it my “journal”. I like the idea of simple journal entries to share my clients stories better.
And who knows, maybe later on once my little men have grown and I have a bit more time I’ll revisit the amount of time I’m willing to give to my business, but how I determine my success will always remain the same.
